Your tax dollars at work No. 645

Assembly Republican leader Alex DeCroce and his colleagues are calling for a constitutional amendment to establish the Office of Auditor General, which would be an elected office with prosecutorial authority. “The governor’s inaction over the last four years has ultimately cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, but instead of addressing the problem, his solution has been to raise taxes.” DeCroce said. He offered a few examples of what’s happening under the current system:

Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority

$102 for an employee to rent golf clubs in Florida.

$494 for a Washington, DC-based employee to attend the authority’s holiday parties.

$445 for the executive director to stay at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington which included $30 for liquor and a $27 breakfast.

$21,055 for an corporate tent and limosine minibus service to the Meadowlands to watch the New York Giants. This was billed as a chance to show off for prospective clients.

$11,429 for a suite and transportation to see the Giants open their season in Dallas. Another chance to show off.

$400 for two bottles of wine at an Atlantic City restaurant.

$118 for a double tip. Employee didn’t realize gratuity was included.

$165 for a meal in San Diego for which an itemized receipt was not available.

There’s more, but you get the point. There is no oversight even with all the watchdogs the state allegedly has.

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About Bob Ingle

Bob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption" and "Chris Christie: The Inside Story Of His Rise To Power". He has won numerous journalism awards and is often a news analyst on radio and television. Twitter @ bobingle99.

15 Responses to Your tax dollars at work No. 645

I am sure, if we ask annie or even Chris they will tell us that this raping of the NJ taxpayer does not rise to the level of a crime, it is merely disdain.

Rather then waste more tax payer dollars on ANOTHER watchdog agency why don’t our most conscientious officials insist the current dollar sucking watchdogs do their jobs?

NJ is beyond hope. We are the most corrupt state in the nation. All ANYONE need do to find waste, fraud and corruption is look at ANY department, municipality or individual, yet we have multiple agencies that are unable to find ANY waste, fraud and corruption. Abolish all those agencies first, starting with the AG office, that saves over a BILLION dollars right there, and then talk to me about a new watchdog agency.

More nonsense in a state of nothing but nonsense. Anything and Everything could be fixed if any combination of 21 senators and 41 assemblymen wanted it fixed. Nothing changes in NJ because we cannot get 62 people that want it changed.

DeCroce is 100% correct…..What he neglects to mention is even if some one in a state agency wanted to report this type of waste there is NO ONE to report it to….No one!! Imagine if there was a hot line that people could report wasteful or even questionable spending to. Maybe he should set something like that up…….

So we’ll put more guards on the guards, and then put more guards on those guards, form task forces, enact laws, create oversight panels, appoint steering committees, hire analysts, stand on our heads and spit quarters, until we’re foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards, and we’ll still have the same old broken system.

You can’t “inspect in ” quality. It has to be built in. “Quality Control” is a term that reflects just how poorly your process works. While I applaud Alex’s desire to make things better, if that’s what it is, I rather doubt this has a flying chance, and amounts to pandering.

For any state employee to sign off on this is criminal ans should lose there job .We sent Tyco’s CEO to jail for a lot less than these state employee let get by them ! fire them there not doing there jobs ! …..Oh that’s right Corzine gave them that special medical benefits and retirement package why should they bite the hand that feed them

We have a comptroller, an AG and an IG, what are they doing? Perhaps before we create another tiltle, Auditor General, with another big staff we should clean up the three offices mentioned. If those three offices are not doing their jobs perhaps it’s time to fire the person at the top and consolidate the offices into one. It may not be any more productive but it will save the taxpayers alot of money.

How about setting up a hot line to APP to report abuse of tax payer money for State employee’s to bring attention to the kind of abuses?
Bob can investigate these tips and then report to the N.J. tax payers in his column in the APP !

I thought that there was also a state auditor. You know the one that started the audits of the Abbott districts but somehow got distracted and after maybe three that was all we heard about. They were that bad.

How about making the duties of an auditor with prosecutorial authority part of the Lt. Governor’s job? We could have lived without this new position that has no defined duties. It’s an elected position too. Anyone running for it should have appropriate accounting credentials.
Corzine got his Controller, Mr. Boxer, and all we’ve heard is a few derogatory reports about the waste in Trenton, but have any of his recommendations been put into practice? I don’t know of any.

Must be the new tax on wine kicking in. The should have ordered beer like us little people.

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Bob Ingle, Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers, on politics in "The Soprano State".

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Bob IngleBob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey Newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption." Hear him Fridays at 5 p.m. on www.tommygshow.com radio. twitter.com/bobingle99 E-mail Bob

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